True, and a lot of the fashion stores bump the price up, and try to excuse it by claiming it's to pay for the brand, because often the quality isn't all that and the 'upmarket' outlets encourage people to change to the latest fashion anyway, which is wasteful. For me, that makes sneering at Primark hypocritical. Personally, I avoid that type of branded clothing, as for me, it just shows the wearer to have self esteem issues.
I dislike the principle of disposable fashion and paying people 50p a day manufacture your goods. Obviously it’s popular here, but it’s only achievable at the expense of others.
By the nature of the word, all fashion is disposable, in fact the upper end of fashion is even more disposable as it changes frequently, and often before it's had chance to wear out, which is why I described it as wasteful. Also, all income is relative. Who knows how the people that pay for high priced fashion have acquired their money? It's unlikely to be because they're a philanthropist, although looking at the state of some expensive fashion, they could portray a ragged trousered one.
There's plenty of high end, big name brands who also pay 50p a day to manufacture their expensive goods.
Some goods are more disposable than others, in 2005 7% of waste sent to landfill was textiles, by 2010 it was 30%, it’s actually called the ‘Primark effect’. For some, air conditioned factories, sick pay, holiday pay and a decent wage for workers are a minimum requirement and there’s obviously a cost attached to that. It’s also not just a choice between cheap or expensive, there’s plenty of options in between.
There’ll be some, but in the main, the more premium the brand, the more concerned they are about the image of that brand. If they’re achieving premium prices, they can obviously also afford to pay decent prices.
Can be quite hard for those not itk to pick them though. Are there such things for apparel like Fairtrade, Red Tractor and so on? It's obvious that a £3 shirt likely has someone's blood on it and that a £300 shirt isn't 100 times more ethical than the £3 one.
None of which changes the fact that Primark has queues at their windows, and other big names have chipboard.
Yes,try Marks&Spencer and our very own 'Clarks' shoes(made in Vietnam) for starters(soon to be Hong Kong).We also pay some countries to sift through our household waste and laughably,our Langoustine are sent to China for processing as scampi!!! Not our choice but suits the billionaire businessman!! One way out of Brexit and Covid....Bring back the Great British tradition of industry,FFS,the country is crying out for it
Might be crying out for it but can the country afford to buy it? A company in Wales started making denim jeans using local labour, great move I thought but they're £150 a pair entry level, £230 a pair top of the range. How many can afford that for a pair of jeans? I know it's just 1 example but I think it makes the point.
Timberland boots, China Wrangler jeans, Mauritius Doc Martin, Vietnam Harley Davidson, India Triumph motorcycles, Thailand Apple everything, China All premium brands made with cheap labour and sold at premium prices. At least Primark buy cheap and sell cheap.
Sadly, people don’t give a **** where stuff comes from as long as it’s cheap, they won’t pay for British made stuff, other than at the very top end. Clarks make pretty much everything in the Far East already, the new owner won’t change anything on that front, Hong Kong doesn’t manufacture stuff any more, like here it’s too expensive. It’s Thailand that’s doing the langoustines.
It certainly is 1 example of greed....I think we've been here before some months ago? But seriously,I met my wife at the age of 17(both of us) and she was a machinist(seamstress),back in the day when the U.K produced it's own goods.I hope for those days to return!!
But that's just it OLM...It's not cheap?? £110 for a pair of Clarks shoes doesn't strike me as a bargain anymore?
Just because something is made in China, it doesn’t mean it was cheap, in fact in international terms China is now relatively expensive and they’ve largely switched to making more premium gear.
Surely that's just part of the natural process of a global free market economy, where a country can start at the bottom and build up, leaving the bottom end available for another Country to take over and do the same. Limiting that leaves a lot more people lacking the opportunity to benefit from industrialisation and economic growth. The alternatives are to leave them to starve, or pump in foreign aid.
That’s Hiut and I think they’re doing okay, but they export a lot of it to places who are prepared to pay premium prices for British made goods. There’s another one called HebTroCo who are making jeans in Hebden Bridge, they’re about £130. Ironically, almost all the remaining British clothing factories are owned and staffed by people from Pakistan.
It is and I’m not suggesting that should change, I just think it would be better if we pulled back on the race to the bottom and the never ending quest for cheaper prices. We’re paying people peanuts, to make gear that’s so cheap and so disposable that it often ends up in landfill with the tags still attached. It’s bad for the people making it, it’s bad for the environment, it’s just all-round not a great way to go on.
